The Sunday Refill - 7 Links for Your Weekend (18/6/17)

Of course, in this weather, make sure your reading is accompanied by drinking lots of water too…

1) Walking through ‘The Valley of Vision’ Prayer Guide – TheValley of Vision by Arthur Bennett is a fabulous collection of written prayers that has become hugely popular over the last few years since its author/editor’s death. But even if you have it on your shelf, you may have struggled to find a way of building the rich prayers it contains into your weekly rhythm. That’s where this handy ‘walk through’ is so useful, offering a simple way of praying through the collection over a number of weeks. Just download and print.

3) On Tim Farron – Much has been written this week after Tim Farron’s remarkable resignation speech where he announced he was stepping down as leader of the UK’s Liberal Democrats party. Many Christians have noted and praised his willingness to prioritise faithfulness to Jesus Christ. Isabel Hardman has helpfully called out the intolerance of our so-called tolerant society. However the above piece by Graham Shearer is an excellent reminder that there is no neutral public square: “The problem is that politics is inescapably about which moral vision is going to be embodied and, at times, enforced by the state. Politics is about making laws, laws which carry penalties if they are broken, and therefore the question is not whether someone’s faith will be imposed on society but whose.”

7) Justin Welby and Agreeing to Disagree – Lee Gatiss responds to the Scottish Episcopal Church’s vote to alter that Church’s Canon on Marriage, as well as news of a consecration of a missionary bishop for Europe in response, and the subsequent letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury to all Primates, which Gatiss argues is surprising both in what it omits and in what it focuses on.